Criminal justice reporter

A soldier on his way from Georgia for a new base assignment stopped by his mother’s home in Athens on Tuesday night and got into an argument in which Athens-Clarke police said his mother threatened him with a loaded gun.

The 32-year-old U.S. Army infantryman, who had been based at Fort Stewart, was in the process of relocating with his wife and stepchild to California.

On the way to their new home, the soldier visited his mother, Julie Ann Boyd, at her home on Hampton Court, where police said they started to argue at the dinner table. Later, the argument moved to a back room where a scuffle ensued, leaving the soldier with a busted lip. After his wife intervened, he said that Boyd left the room and returned with a pistol, according to police.

“(The soldier) advised that Boyd told him to leave or else,” an officer wrote in a police incident report. “(He) advised that he was concerned for his safety and thought his mother would use the gun.”

After smelling the odor of an alcoholic beverage on the soldier’s breath, the officer asked him how much he had to drink, to which he replied about six beers and at least two glasses of wine, according to police.

Boyd, 55, told police that her son had a substance abuse problem, but the incident report does not state whether that was the cause of the argument. According to published reports, the woman’s son is a combat veteran who served with a mortar platoon in Afghanistan.

Boyd said that after the argument moved from the dinner table to the back room, her son struck her and threw her down, police said. She explained her son’s busted lip resulted from him head-butting her, while the son said his mother had punched or bit his mouth.

Boyd, who had marks on her face as well as possible bruises on her arms, told police she got the pistol because she was afraid of her son. She admitted that she “waved it some,” but denied pointing the gun at her son, police said.

The soldier’s wife told police that Boyd pointed the gun at her husband and told him to leave “or else.”

When the officer checked the woman’s gun, he ejected a bullet from the chamber, “indicating that the pistol had been ready to fire,” according to the incident report.

Boyd also had been drinking prior to the dispute, according to police.

Boyd was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and battery, both under the Family Violence Act.

Although her son was not arrested, he was listed in the incident report as an offender for the crime of battery. The report noted that there were no witnesses to what happened when the mother and son were alone in the back room.

The arresting officer provided Boyd and her son with Crime Victim Bill of Rights pamphlets and explained to them how to obtain protective orders in court.

Boyd was released from the Clarke County Jail on Wednesday afternoon after posting an $8,000 bond.